Page 3 of Oohs, Ahhhs, and Orbs

Me, on the other hand, I was still a virgin because men scared the shit out of me. Not that I was afraid one would or could physically harm me. I was a powerful witch and had no doubts that I would be able to protect myself from just about any external harm. No, my fear psychologically stemmed from the relationships that failed for my mother and grandmother.

Both of them had been deeply in love before I was born. The man who had been my grandfather had been Grandmother’s fated mate. As soon as she revealed that she was a witch, he left town and never looked back, not knowing that he had left Grandmother pregnant. It was questionable if the knowledge would have changed his mind. All I know is that Grandmother’s heart was broken, and she never tried to find another companion, not for love anyway.

My own father passed away shortly before I was born, leaving my mother heartbroken. Without any powers, she wouldn’t have known if he was her fated mate or not, but in her heart, he was everything to her. When he died, so did a part of herself. As faras I knew, she’d never even looked for a man to spend the night with.

All that to say, I was scared out of my mind that the same thing would happen to me. It hurt my heart to see my mother so broken, and it angered me that my grandmother’s mate could leave her so easily. So I stayed away from men and absolutely never touched them unless I knew for certain that they couldn’t possibly be my mate. That didn’t mean I couldn’t fantasize about some of the things I read in the smutty books Shayla and I passed back and forth.

Palms slapping down on the glass made me jump as Shayla gasped with a laugh. “Holy shit! You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? You want someone to tongue your asshole!”

Just then, the bell over the door rang, causing me to nearly expire where I stood. I croaked out a welcome as my face flamed, and Shayla giggled. I leaned in and hissed. “Will you stop? No! I donotwant my asshole licked! Goddess! What is wrong with you?”

She giggled-snorted, trying to control herself but failing miserably. “Never say never! I say anything is worth trying at least once.” She took a deep breath and fanned herself as she finally managed to reign in her laughter. “Whew! I needed that. So, tell me, if it wasn’t the rimming, what made you blush so hard?”

I thought of the commanding way the male lead had taken charge and took the heroine with deep, powerful strokes while he held her still with his fist wrapped around her hair and could feel my face lighting up all over again. I cleared my throat as Shayla hooted with laughter.

“Oh, girl, I really need to know now!”

My customer, who appeared to be in her sixties, walked up, holding a fairy statue in her hands. Her eyes bounced back and forth between me and my friend as she hesitantly approached. Igave the brightest smile I could muster under the circumstances and gestured her forward while using my other hand to give Shayla a hard shove to the side.

“Please, ignore us. My friend here was just stopping by on her way to school.” I glared at my best friend in the whole world. “Right, Shayla?”

She snorted and snatched up her bottle of water, then waved. “Right. See you after class. Don’t forget you need to finishMidnight Masterso we can discuss it later!”

I inwardly groaned as Shayla walked out the front door, but not before pointing a finger at Mildred and giving her the stink eye.

“Oh! Are you readingMidnight Master, the new book that just came out? Oh my goodness, I loved that book! The hero was so deliciously hot. It was so good, I asked my husband to reenact some of the spicier love scenes with me.”

I was frozen in shock with a strained smile. How did this always happen to me? As the woman described exactly which scene she and her husband tried out, I was torn between high-fiving her while saying, “Woo hoo, get you some, girl!” and being mortified that a stranger was telling me all about her sex life.In detail. In the end, I decided that if I ever did end up with a man, I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

Chapter

Three

LOGAN

Iwas steadily ignoring the stack of folders on my desk as I read over the toxicology report on a case I’d picked up a few weeks ago. At first glance, the case was a typical accidental death.

Robert Gleason had picked up a one-night stand. While in the throes of passion, things had gotten out of hand. Instead of squeezing the side of his partner’s throat like any well-respecting dominant in bed would while fucking a partner who enjoyed choking, good old Rob had pressed down on her windpipe, cutting off all oxygen and ultimately crushing her windpipe.

I didn’t know if fear had made him do the right thing, or maybe his guilt, but he called the police to report what had happened. At the time, he’d been told to sit tight while an investigation had been conducted. But now, sitting with the folder in front of me, the tox screen revealed traces of Rohypnol in the victim’s blood, taking the seemingly innocent accident of a man who’d used poor judgment into a whole other type of crime. It seemed Rob was not just an idiot. He was also a rapist.

With disgust, I closed the file, making a note to hand it over to the Drug Enforcement Task Force. With any luck, Robert Gleason would spill his guts, revealing his dealer, and hopefully, it would help get one more drug pusher off the streets.

I blinked down at the new folder that just landed on top of the closed Gleason file before glancing up to see Mac standing next to my desk.

“Medical Examiner’s report,” he gestured at the file as I reached to open it. “Our victim died of a wound to her heart. Looks like a wickedly sharp, thin blade. Right between the ribs. I know there weren’t any weapons found at the scene, so it goes to say the murderer took it with them.”

There was a 5x7 color photo sitting on top of a typed report that hadn’t been there the last time I opened the file. I took a good look at the wound in the picture. It was small and narrow, with a hint of bruising around the edges, indicating that the victim was still alive when the weapon struck. “No signs of ligature marks around the wrists or ankles,” I murmured as I flipped to the next photo, which was of the full body of the victim. “She wasn’t restrained. How did the murderer manage to keep her perfectly still while they performed the ceremony?”

I flipped through the photographs until I found the one I was looking for. The pentacle she’d been found in the center of had been drawn with chalk, the outline crisply lined with no signs of smudging from a struggle. Even where the body had been laying over the lines barely disturbed the precise lines. Without a toxicology report, it would be difficult to say, but I was leaning more toward magic than drugs to incapacitate. Whoever had murdered the elderly woman was a powerful witch.

As Mac settled into his own desk, causing the chair that was probably older than I was to creak ominously, I reached for my phone. I needed to know which of the witches in town would have the ability to magically hold another. “Hey, Mac?” I askedas I reached for the buttons on the phone receiver. “You talked to the daughter. Did she happen to mention how powerful of a witch her mom was?”

Mac scratched at the bristles on his chin and squinted at me. “I can’t say that it was something that came up when I talked to her.” I nodded and punched in the phone number. It was a quick call, and I had to make sure to give my apologies for the hit and run phone call while promising to show up for dinner sometime soon.

“What’s up with the grim expression?” Mac asked, eyeing me as I set the phone back down. I shook my head as I looked at the short list of names. “It looks like there are maybe five witches in the immediate area that would be powerful enough magically to hold down our victim, Mrs. Brooks. One of those five is away on a cruise.”

“So we have four suspects? That certainly narrows it down. The case should be open and closed for us. However, I don’t know how we can get magical evidence. How is that supposed to be proven in a court of law?”

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